Two Questions regarding an osage self bow

[J. Holden]

So I pulled a stave out of the corner of my garage that has been drying over the past few years.  I had about given up on trying another build and now I'm remembering why.

Anywho, I have it roughed out to the basic shape.  I was going for a wide bow (following Clay Hayes instruction) and have had to trim the one side down as it has a small hair line crack in it.  I'm trying to file this side until the crack disappears and I think I'm almost there.  My question is I'm at about an 1" wide now.  Is this to narrow across the back?

Also will antler tips make this bow shootable with low stretch (FF) string?  Or do I need some other sort of overlay?

Right now the bow is about 3/4" thick and 64" tip to tip.  I would like to get 55-60 #'s out of this wood.

-Jeremy  

[BMorv]

Yes, you can use fast flight with antler tip overlays.  There's a few guys on here that use FF on osage selfbows without overlays.  
You may have trouble with 1" wide at 64" and 60#'s, but I'll let someone with more osage experience answer this one.  
What's your draw length?

[J. Holden]

Draw length would be 28".  Thank you for chiming in BMorv.  I was scoping another website and saw a plenty thin bow.  Not sure what the specs are but I think I'll be able to pull it off.

Just need to go slowly.  That is always where I screw it up.

-Jeremy  

[Mo_coon-catcher]

The osage by itself will hand the fast flight fine. I've gone down to 6 strands of D97 on a 50# without any trouble. I know you can hit 50# no problem and should be about to get in the 60s without much trouble. If it starts taking set early on? Either heat treat or drop the weight your pulling to. The most extreme osage I've messed with was a 100# ELB that was 70" between the nocks and it was only about 1.15" wide. It only took about 2" of set because I was tryin to push it to 200# and then 150# when it took set early. And stopped to 100# when a couple knota fretted at 150#@25". So I'd say your safe to hit 60# if it's good osage and you go slow.

Kyle

[EwokArcher]

Off hand I would say that's way too narrow to comfortably hold 60 pounds, I'd make a 60 pound bow at least 1.25 at that width and lengt hunless unless it's high quality Osage.

[Pat B]

I'd say you can make a 60#, 1" osage bow. 1 1/4" to 1 3/8" is ideal but 1" is very doable. Is the bow 3/4" thick overall of just the limbs?
Osage doesn't need overlays with FF strings. I have 2 osage bows by a member named Dano that used to be on TG. Both have FF strings and neither have overlays.

[J. Holden]

The limbs are 3/4" thick from the fades to the tips.  It's pretty stiff right now.  Barely bending.  I'll go low and slow and see what happens.  Thanks for the information and opinions.

Jeremy

[Pat B]

Osage doesn't mind a rounded belly like an ELB or a thick rectangular cross section with a radiused belly.